Thursday Apple Rumors: Google to Launch Retail Store Chain

It would join Microsoft in the brick-and-mortar retail business

Store Clones: Internet search giant Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is planning to follow Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) lead and sell its electronic devices through its own retail stores, the Wall Street Journal notes. The company hasn’t yet selected store locations or set a launch date for the stores. In 2011, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Motorola makes a variety of mobile devices that run on Google’s Android operating system. Google executives have debate turning Motorola stores into Google-branded stores selling other Google products. Apple’s chain of retail stores have become a profit center for the company, as well as a platform for promoting its consumer electronics products. Software giant Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has launched its own chain of retail stores, whose interiors are said to strongly resemble Apple Stores’ sleek, modernist design.

Wrist Tech: In August of 2011, Apple applied for a patent covering wearable, flexible display devices that connect to other mobile devices, AppleInsider notes. The patent application seems to support a recent flurry of media reports that the company is developing a smartwatch. In its application, Apple noted that the flexible screen would wrap around any body appendage, but was most suited to a wrist. A bi-stable spring would hold the device in place in the fashion of a slap bracelet. The flexible screen could display content transmitted via Bluetooth or other wireless connections from other mobile devices across its entire, wrist-covering face.

Court Maneuvers: U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan said that a lawsuit brought against Apple by David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital hedge fund could succeed, CNET notes. Greenlight Capital is suing Apple to block a proxy proposal that would restrict the company from issuing preferred stock without shareholder approval. Einhorn has said he would like to see Apple issue preferred shares as a way to distribute its surplus cash. The proxy vote will take place at Apple’s shareholder meeting next week unless Judge Sullivan issues an injunction. The judge declined to rule on Greenlight’s request to halt the vote, noting that he hadn’t determined whether the vote would cause Greenlight irreparable harm. The judge noted, however, that “likelihood of success” in the lawsuit was with Greenlight.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.